KAPLAN UNIVERSITY

HW410 Stress: Critical Issues in Management and Prevention

Stress Management and Prevention

Program Resource Guide

KAPLAN UNIVERSITY

Stress Management and Prevention Program Resource Guide

By Janessa Axelsen Kaplan University HW410: Stress: Critical Issues in Management and Prevention November 18, 2012

Table of Contents
UNIT 1 THE NATU RE OF STRESS

Information to Remember Resources: Exercises: Exercises Tools: Journal Writing: Journal Writing
UNIT 2 THE BODY AS BATTL EF IEL D

Information to Remember Resources: Exercises: Exercises Tools: Journal Writing: Journal Writing
UNIT 3 F EAST OR F AM ININE

Information to Remember Resources: Exercises: Exercises Tools: Journal Writing: Journal Writing
UNIT 4 ONE PL ANET UNDER STRESS

Information to Remember Resources: Exercises: Exercises Tools: Journal Writing

UNIT 5 UNDER STRESS: WHAT NOW?

Information to Remember Resources: Exercises Tools: Journal Writing

UNIT 6 AGEL ESS WISDOM OF MEDITATI ON

Information to Remember Resources: Exercises Tools: Journal Writing

UNIT 7 SIGHT, SOUN D, AND BODY WORK

Information to Remember Resources: Exercises

Tools: Journal Writing

UNIT 8 THE WEL L NESS M ANDAL A

Information to Remember Resources: Exercises Tools: Journal Writing

UNIT 9 APPL YING TO STRESS: CRITICAL M ANAGEM ENT L IF E AND PREVEN TIO N YOUR PROF ESSIO NAL

Information to Remember Resources: Exercises Tools: Journal Writing

UNIT 1 0 APPL YING TO STRESS: CRITICAL M ANAGEM ENT L IF E AND PREVEN TIO N YOUR PROF ESSIO NAL

Information to Remember Resources: Exercises Tools: Journal Writing

ADDITI ON AL INF ORM AT IO N

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Unit 1: The Nature of Stress

Information to Remember:

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Unit

What is stress? We hear it mentioned often and casually, many times even made into a joke but stress is no laughing matter. Stress is an emotional coping response something that an individual perceives as a threat or challenge. If prolonged it poses major physiological, emotional and spiritual damage. It is important to understand that stress is not just emotional but that your thoughts and emotions have physical power over your bodys health and well-being. Men and women respond differently to stress. When women become stressed they produce a greater quantity of oxytocin than men do. Women use open talking communication while men would rather bottle it up inside or release it by physical means. There once was thought to be only a fight or flight response to stress, but according to Shelley Taylors theory, females are not innately inclined to the flight response because they are made to have dependent offspring that they most often unable to flee from. When we perceive a threat or challenge, real or imaginary our body is designed to prepare for a fight or flight response, meaning our body physically prepares to fight off a tiger or run away from it. This is an important response in such situations, but most of us rarely face those. No matter if we perceive threat of a deadline at work or an actual tiger, our body doesnt know the difference and physiologically prepares for it. While this response is meant to protect us for short term, it harm our physiology and emotional well-being if it is prolonged.

Resources: Exercises:
Personal Stress Inventory: Top 10 Stressors The first step to taking care of or reducing issues is to understand what they are. By identifying the stressors in

your life, you find out which stressors are necessary and can then create active and intentional ways to reduce your stress load and improve your health.

A Good Nights Sleep This is a great, informative exercise that gives insight to the phenomenon of sleep and its importance. When we do not get enough sleep many aspects of our life and health may be affected including memory and motor coordination fade rapidly along with performance in all aspects, which does not reduce stress.

Additional Resources
Maximized Living. (2011). Stress Survey. Retrieved from < http://maximizedliving.com/Home/HealthandWellnessTools/StressCalculator.aspx > This is a quick survey to gauge how you are doing with managing your stress and gives you practical ways to start reducing your stress. The first step to any process is knowing where you stand so you can mark improvements.

Unit 2: The Body as Battlefield

Information to Remember:
Acute stress causes delivery of glucose to the brain making more energy available to neurons and therefore better memory formation and retrieval is activated. This is important if we are faced with the same or similar situation in the future we can anticipate what may be to come and be able to seek a solution more efficiently. When memory is inclined it may also enhance our ability to see other solutions, which can be especially useful in emergency situations. When stress is prolonged, it can result in loss of memory. The hippocampus gathers memories from incoming sensory experiences and sends them to other areas of the cortex for long term memory storage. The hippocampus is equipped to handle acute stress, however, because of the hippocampuss sensitivity to cortisol, chronic or prolonged stress and the repeated or excessive exposure to

cortisol causes rapid aging of the hippocampus, damage and cell shrinkage of this area of the brain. Prolonged stress wreaks havoc on every system and bodily process. It may impair memory and learning, lead to depression and dibetes, trouble breathing, suppressed immune system, cancers, create heart and reproductive problems, musculoskeletal pain and much more.

Resources: Exercises:
Immediate, Intermediate, and Prolonged Stress Effects This exercise is great because it allows the individual to reflect on how they feel and what happens to their body in each of these situations so to prove to themselves the differences of the length of stress induced symptoms and consequences

Tools: Journal Writing:

Pysical Symptom Questionaire This is a self-assessment to see if you currently suffer with any symtoms that may be stress related.

Additional Resources
Naueart, Dr. Rick. (2008). Stress Affects Learning and Memory. Psych Central. Retrieved from http://psychcentral.com/news/2008/03/12/stress-affectslearning-and-memory/2031.html Above is an interesting article confirming the effects of long term stress on learning and memory but also referencing a study of how short term stress can also impair brain-cell function.

Unit 3: Feast or Famine

Information to Remember:

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Unit

Predictability often times brings unncessasary or premature stress and anxiety. Predictability is just thatpredictable, not definite yet often times we worry in advance for things that have not yet occurred or may not occur at all. In this section we debated whether stress could be reduced with a warning sign, or if that would amplify it. In some cases, warning signs reduced the stress, but in others they caused further anxiety depending on the timing of the warning sign. Anger natural survival emotion; its the fight component of the fight-or-flight response. Unfortunately, when mismanaged it creates unhealthy emotional and physical consequences and we as a society have been conditioned to suppress our feelings of anger out of social ediquette. It is important to find healthy ways to release anger so we dont face sickness and disease as a result of it building up. Fear can be an enveloping feeling that is difficult to resolve or let go of. Fear is the flight part or fight or flight that many of us face in several areas of our lives. The effects of fear can be exhausting, not only emotionally but fear actually exhausts the body to the point of disease, illness, and sometimes death. It is important to find healthy coping skills to handle fear and anger alike.

Resources: Exercises:
Anger, The Fight Response This is a helpful exercise to identify and become aware of the ways in which you may mismanage your anger.

Tools: Journal Writing:

The Psychology of Your Stress This journal allows you to dig deeper into your own experences with stress and better understand your fear-based stress, angerbased stress, the stages you go through of grietvance for unmet expectations,

understanding your reactive behavior to stress as well as the importance of dreams

Additional Resources

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Unit

NHS. (2011). 10 Ways to Fight Your Fears. Retrieved from http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/Pages/overcomingfears.aspx 10 steps to be practical and active about fighting and overcoming your fears.

Unit 4: One Planet Under Stress

Information to Remember:
Some people have personalities that are prone to stress. Type A, type D, co-dependent,
and helpless-hopeless are the personalities types categorized to elicit high stress lives, which in turn elicit higher sickness and disease.

Some people have personalities that are stress resistant. The Survivor personality, the Hardy perosonality and the type R personality are categorized as the low stress personality types, which also correlate with less sickness and disease.
Self-esteem is the perception of ones worth. Self-esteem is essential to successfully combating stress, and in turn successfully combating disease. A high self-esteem is considered the best defense against stress, strategies used to combat stress are useless without a strong feeling of self-worth or self-value

Resources: Exercises:
List the Distractions of the Human Path This is a great exercise to take a moment to reflect on the distractions you have in your life that are taking away from your happiness and perhaps adding more stress. Once they are identified you can

actively find ways to reduce distractions and become more productive toward the things you want and the things that reduce your stress and bring you happiness!

Tools: Journal Writing:

5
Unit

Under the Gun: Stress and Personality. This journal allows you to reflect on different characteristics you employ to deal with your stress and forces you to think about how someone with the healthy stress coping personality of the Hardy personality would cope with stress. In this way you can brainstorm more effective coping skills.

Additional Resources
41. 41 Questions, 1 Personality. Retrieved from www.41.com This quiz can tell you which personality type you are so you can know your risk for sickness and disease and find ways to manage your stress to reduce your risks.

Unit 5: Under Stress: What Now?

Information to Remember:
Aging is influenced by the kinds of foods you eat, your exercise, levels of stress, sleep habits, external toxins, and quality of relationships. Reframing is a great technique to take your negative thoughts or situations and find a different way of looking at them focusing on the positive aspects. Rational Emotional Behavior Therapy works with reframing ones perception with the understanding that perceptions can be changed even when situations cannot be.
Humor therapy, or comic relief, is the use of humor to promote wellbeing through positive thoughts, attitudes, and emotions by counter balancing the deleterious effects of negative thoughts, perceptions, and emotions on ones health.

Tools: Journal Writing:

Reframing: Seeing a Bigger, Clearer Perspective. Too often we all get caught up in our own problems and situations and can get trapped. It is so important to step back and change your perspective, when you change your perspective it changes your attitude which changes your perception of your life for the better. The Time Crunch Questionnaire- This questionnaire allows you to assess how you are doing with managing your time.

Additional Resources
Ecards. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.someecards.com/ This is a fun site to take a few moments and get a laugh when you are feeling negative emotions and dont have time to watch a full movie. Youtube.com is also a great source of funny short video clips!

Unit 6: Ageless Wisdom of Meditation

Information to Remember:
Diaphragmatic breathing is a learned behavior that can relax your body and clear your mind. It is simple, available to all and always available! When we breathe using our chest wall (chest breathing) our sympathetic response is higher than if we take the pressure off this area and use our lower abdominal area which creates a more relaxed state due to decreased sympathetic response.

Visualization is when the conscious mind knowingly focueses on the image of what you desire to change. This might be in your head, but its common to also use physical images to do this. For example, if you want to save up for a vacation to the Caribbean, you might picture yourself there or have a picture of it where you can see it every day. Focusing your energies on a goal and believing it can happen will get you there faster.
Meditation is thought to be the oldest form of relaxation. Simply put, it is a mindcleansing or emptying process. Meditation goes to a deeper level and focuses on concentration and increasing awareness of ones being. When the mind has been emptied of conscious thought, unconscious thoughts can enter the conscious realm to bring enlightenment to our lives.

Resources: Exercises:
Three Short Guided Visualizations This takes you through three different scenerios of visualization, a great way to practice visualization find what works best for you and the cheapest getaway youll ever have >

Tools: Journal Writing:

Too Much Information We are constantly bombarded with an information overload that reduces the amount of quiet and calm in our lives. This exercise helps us identify ways we can reduce the amount of information we are exposed to and reduce it where we can.

Additional Sources
Inner Health Studio. (2008). Visualization Audio: Free Relaxation Downloads. Retrieved from http://www.innerhealthstudio.com/visualization-audio.html A great website with free visualization audio!

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Unit 7: Sight, Sound and Body Work

Information to Remember:

Food can either boost or suppress your immune system. Food can be your safest form of medicine or your slowest poison. Food affects not only our physical bodies but also emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of health as well. Certain foods actually induce stress, such foods include sugar, caffeine, salt and foods poor in vitamins and minerals.

Tools: Journal Writing:

Stress Related Eating Behaviors This survey allows you to review and become aware of your eating habits when under stress and see if your habits are related with co-dependent eating behaviors. Self-assessment: Nutritional Eating Habits A great way to become aware of your own eating habits and see which of them may be harming you.

Additional Sources
Hardick, Dr. B.J. Learner, Dr. Ben. (2009). Maximized Living Nutrition Plans. Nothing has ever changed my health or life like this book. I cannot recommend it enough. An eye opening guide to true nutritional health.

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Unit 8: The Wellness Mandala

Information to Remember:

8
Unit

Exercise elicits not only physiological alterations but several psychological changes, for example the runners high, again indicating that the mind and body are interlinked. The positives effect of exercise are lowering heart rate, resting blood pressure and muscle tension along with a slew of other functions that aid in maintaining or regaining physiological calmness. Exercise is a great way to release stress hormones for their intended function of fight or flight. The benefits of exercise include the four components of intensity, duration, frequency of training and mode of exercise. These components together are known as the all-or-none principle meaning if all of these four requirements of exercise met few if any benefits will be gained.

Tools: Journal Writing

Physical Exercise Review your favorite exercises and make a plan of action. My Body, My Physique Understand your issues with your body and brainstorm ways you can change your opinions by understanding where your ideas come from and changing your attitude.

Additional Resources
My Exercise Plan. Retrieved from http://www.myexerciseplan.com/ A great site to plan out your exercise program and stay on track.

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Unit 9: Applying Stress: Critical

Management to your Professional Life

Information to Remember:

9
Unit

No one strategy works for all people, it is important to understand what works for some may not work for all. We all struggle through different kinds of stress and respond differently to stress and to coping strategies because of our unique personalities, likes and dislikes. Usually a combination of several techniques should be used together. In order for a coping technique to be effective it must do one or more of the following: identify the cause of stress, help process information about the stressor, and adjust attitude and possibly behavior to find a peaceful resolution. The relationship between stress and spirituality is has gained more attention by the health care community. Prayed in the text is defined as a thought directed toward divine consciousness, or a request to nurture our self-reliance on our maker.

Resources: Exercises:
There are no exercises or journals provided for this section.

Additional Rescources.
Andy Stanley. (2012). Red Letter Prayers. North Point Community Church. Retrieved from http://www.northpoint.org/messages/red-letter-prayers A sermon series that teaches us how to pray.

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Unit 10: Applying Stress: Critical Management to your Personal Life

Information to Remember:

10
Unit

Key learning point from the unit about Applying Stress: Critical Management to Your Personal Life <insert your text> Key learning point from the unit about Applying Stress: Critical Management to Your Personal Life <insert your text> Key learning point from the unit about Applying Stress: Critical Management to Your Personal Life <insert your text>

Resources: Exercises:
List the title (s) of Exercise (s) selected to include in the resource guide <insert your text>

Tools: Journal Writing:

List the title (s)of Journal Writing (s)selected to include in the resource guide <insert your text>

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Additional Information
<insert your text>

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